


in the way you give and take

by robthestars



Category: Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Slow Burn, kind of. it’s complicated, more tags added later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 13:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18335189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robthestars/pseuds/robthestars
Summary: karolina dean has taken on a life of villainy while nico minoru is a vigilante on a mission. their paths cross; a rivalry forms. but soon they find themselves getting caught up in something much bigger than they ever imagined, and the only way to get out of it may be to work together.aka the deanoru hero/villain au nobody knew they needed





	in the way you give and take

**Author's Note:**

> hello my fellow gays and not gays. this is actually my first time ever uploading something like this, so please excuse me while i figure everything out.
> 
> title is from the song “lips” by the xx.

_Ugh. Men._ Karolina huffed in annoyance, looking down at her watch for the billionth time in the past hour. It was fifteen minutes past seven, meaning her next hit was fifteen minutes late. He had until the thirty minute mark before she gave up on him entirely. She had better things to do with her time than sitting on a roof waiting for some corrupt office worker.

But then again, maybe she didn’t.

She was the one who had reduced herself to a petty life of crime, after all. It gave her a thrill that her life had lacked for so long. Something about breaking rules, breaking the _law_ , gave her this rush of energy she couldn’t describe. She had felt a similar rush the first few times she took off her bracelet, her entire body lighting up, colors dancing across her skin, but that got old. She got used to it; she needed something new.

She tried alcohol, but that only proved useful when she wanted to numb her emotions, not heighten them. She had considered drugs, but she wasn’t entirely sure how her powers would mix with such substances, so she ruled that out, too.

She had been about ready to give up when her friend Gert made a frustration-induced comment during one of the monthly “in case of a supervillain attack” drills at school.

_“Why would criminal masterminds even attack a high school? They would profit so much more off some evil corporation employees. At least those people deserve to get beat up.”_

The girl had a point. Not that Karolina had ever thought about becoming a criminal, let alone an actual _villain_ , but… the prospect of beating up rich old white men just for the fun of it? It had a certain ring to it, if she were honest. Between figuring out her status as a lesbian, discovering her powers, and finding out her mother had cheated on Frank, who she had thought to be her father, she definitely had the bottled-up emotion part of villainy down. It’d be pretty easy to get away with, too, since she would be doing the things heroes _wish_ they could do but don’t because of “codes” or something. Not to mention, she’s _Leslie Dean’s_ daughter. Nobody would expect the Church of Gibborim’s golden child to be out snatching some old fart’s money.

So she gave it a shot. She went out that evening after school, makeshift eye mask over her face, and walked around the streets until she came across a couple of guys in suits hanging around an alley. They had been smoking and counting out dollar bills when she approached, and based on the snippets of conversation she heard, it wasn’t legally obtained money. Needless to say, she managed to give them quite a scare. (All she had to do was light up and one was running. She’s pretty sure the other one ended up with a black eye.)

What surprised her, though, was that she enjoyed it. It was fun, so she kept doing it, her parents too caught up with their impending divorce and attempts to keep it from becoming a church-wide scandal to care about her frequent absences.

At first it was all spontaneous, just pickpocketing random men she would pass in front of the office buildings, but then she started putting more thought into it. Researching. Training. Planning. Snooping.

Which is what led her to where she was tonight. She had been keeping her eye on this local corporation, a smaller branch of Roxxon from what she had gathered, and discovered that it had some business in the underground economy. She wasn’t sure what they did yet exactly, but given the stuff she’d seen about the black market in movies, it was definitely nothing good. The guy she was “meeting” was the one who supposedly had all the connections.

As Karolina glanced back down at her watch again—7:25, it read—part of her began to think this was all a bad idea, slipping the note in the man’s pocket, promising an exchange of weapons she didn’t have for $20k in cash. It was reckless; she didn’t _really_ know what she was getting herself into. For all she knew, she could be meeting an experienced black market assassin.

_I probably should’ve done more research…_

Before Karolina could continue questioning all of her life decisions, a flash of movement in the alley below caught her eye. She sighed, spotting the man from earlier. He was standing by one of the walls, holding a metal briefcase in one hand and his phone in the other. He looked annoyed, as though _he_ had been the one waiting for ages. With a roll of her eyes, Karolina snapped her bracelet off, stashing it in her shoe, before stepping off the roof. The man immediately noticed her lights as she lowered herself down into the alley.

“So what is it that you do exactly?” Karolina quipped as her feet touched the ground. “Other than working at a desk, I mean.”

The man simply stared at her, slack-jawed, visibly trying to process what was happening. A couple of seconds passed before he pulled himself together, straightening his tie as he cleared his throat. He scoffed, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Uh, yeah? That’s kinda why I asked,” Karolina tilted her head, faking amusement. She stepped closer to the man, keeping her hands to her side, waiting to see what he’d do. Ideally, he would just drop the case and run, but something told her that wasn’t happening tonight.

“Look, kid, I’m here meeting someone for some… private business, so if you could just float away or whatever it is you do, it would be greatly appreciated.” The man’s eyes kept flitting between the alley’s entrance and Karolina.

Karolina couldn’t stop the smirk that pulled at her lips. Raising her hands up in front of her, she replied, “Oh, sorry, of course. My bad.” She turned slightly, making it look like she was about to leave before she continued, “The private business you’re talking about… you wouldn’t happen to be waiting on some fancy weapons made from alien tech, would you?”

The man hesitated, clearly caught off guard by the question. “I... how do you know about that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Lucky guess, maybe?” Karolina turned back, shrugging. She winked in the guy’s direction before raising her left hand and sending a blast of light that sizzled as it hit the brick next to his head. “No, but really, there are no weapons. I’m just here for the cash.”

The man started, dropping his phone and immediately reaching into his back pocket for his gun. Karolina was already moving before he could bring it around in front of him, springing forward to grab his arm and twisting, hard. With a yelp, the man lost his grip on the gun, and Karolina glanced down at where it fell before she kicked it behind her. With a hand still on the man’s arm, she yanked him forward as she planted a knee to his crotch. The man toppled over, groaning, and the briefcase dropped to the ground with a metallic clang. Karolina reached down and picked it up, bouncing it in her hands a couple times.

“This _is_ money, right? Because if it’s not, then I think we’re going to have even more problems.” She flipped the case around so she could open it, satisfied when she peered in and saw stacks of dollar bills. Snapping it closed, she looked down at the man who was still curled in the fetal position. “Y’know, I expected this to be harder. I thought you guys were supposed to be the real deal.”

Finally able to breathe properly, the man glared up at Karolina. “You’re going to regret this. You have no idea what you’re messing with.”

 _Well, that doesn’t sound good._ Karolina clicked her tongue, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I suggest you get out of here before I decide to burn your hair off your head.” Truth be told, she didn’t know if her powers could even burn hair, but he didn’t need to know that.

The man scrambled to his feet, pausing for a moment to narrow his eyes at Karolina, seemingly weighing his options. He must have settled on letting it go, though, because just a beat later he brushed the dirt off his suit and walked away. Karolina couldn’t help but notice how stiffly he moved; evidently her knee had done some damage.

Turning her attention back to the case, Karolina laughed quietly to herself. It really had been easy. _Too_ easy. Almost as though these people wanted her to get cocky...

Rather than continue pondering what inexplicable danger her future may hold, she found herself whipping around at the sound of someone clearing their throat behind her. She was met with a girl half a foot shorter than her, decked out in black from head to toe, holding a black staff with a gold ring situated at its top. Karolina couldn’t make out the girl’s face—except for lips, also black with lipstick, and a chin—due to the fact she was wearing a mask, but something about her seemed familiar.

“Hey, are you that Sister Grimm the media has been going on about?” Karolina asked before she could help herself. She had been curious about the newcomer ever since she heard about her in the news last week.

The other girl frowned, replying with an artificially deep voice, “I greatly disapprove of that name, but yes. Now tell me, who the hell are you?”

Karolina paused at that. She obviously couldn’t use her real name, and she hadn’t really taken the time to come up with an alias yet, either. She went with the first thing she could think of: “Lucy, as in Lucy in the Sky.”

Sister Grimm barked out a laugh, and Karolina found herself thinking that she’d like to hear what it’d sound like without the voice modifier. “Interesting choice. Did a news reporter give you that one, too?”

“No! I came up with it just now, thank you,” Karolina replied incredulously.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to offend. I just didn’t expect that to be the name of a criminal.”

“Aren’t you a vigilante? Vigilantes are criminals, too, you know.”

Karolina could almost hear Sister Grimm’s eye roll. “You know what I meant. Anyway, I actually came here for,” she gestured with her hand at the case, “that. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, but I’m not leaving without it.”

Now it was Karolina’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, right. Why would you want $20,000?”

“So I can return it to the authorities…? Wow, you are really bad at this job.”

“Okay, I choose the hard way, then.”

“Suit yourself,” Sister Grimm shrugged, moving herself into a looser position.

Watching as the shorter girl twirled her staff around, Karolina widened her stance, tightening her grip on the briefcase and flexing the fingers on her other hand. Sister Grimm touched the end of her staff to the ground and then swiftly moved forward, sweeping it at Karolina’s knees. Karolina narrowly jumped out of the way, aiming a burst of light at the hand that was holding the staff. It connected with a hiss, and the staff flew backwards, landing a few feet away on the alley floor.

Undeterred, Sister Grimm held her hand out, apparently summoning the staff back to her. Before it could finish its trip, Karolina leaped forward, tackling the other girl to the ground. Sister Grimm grunted as Karolina pinned the girl beneath her weight, letting go of the briefcase in the process.

“Look, I have no interest in harming a pretty face like yours, but I am not letting you have this money,” Karolina said, smug.

Sister Grimm’s mouth dropped open as Karolina said that, but then her face darkened, her lips quirking into a smirk. Karolina looked to the side and realized that the staff was now back in Sister Grimm’s grasp. Before she knew what was happening, she was roughly pushed backwards, and she found that their positions had switched.

Karolina’s breath hitched in her throat as she became aware of Sister Grimm’s knees pushing into her sides, hands pressed against her shoulders. She felt her lights grow slightly warmer, slightly brighter, and she prayed to whatever forces above that the other girl wouldn’t notice.

Whoever received her prayers clearly had a sense of humor because next thing she knew, Sister Grimm was moving her face closer to Karolina’s, her lips— _God_ , her lips—brushing against her ear as she whispered, “You’re lucky your face is pretty, too.”

Karolina could’ve sworn her heart had stopped beating.

Relief flooded over her when Sister Grimm finally pulled back, no doubt satisfied with herself. Karolina was too focused on trying to remember how to breathe to register that she was moving to pick up the case until she was already gone.

 _Well, shit_. Karolina groaned, running her hands down her face before pushing herself off the ground and into a sitting position. According to her watch, that had only taken 20 minutes, both the exchange with the man and… whatever had just happened between her and Sister Grimm.

Karolina pulled her bracelet out of her shoe and put it back on, the pinks and blues fading away as she stood up. She took a quick survey of the alley, noticing that the man’s gun was still lying on the ground. For a moment she considered taking it, but quickly decided against it; she had no reason for a gun. Shaking her head to refocus her thoughts, she looked around again to make sure nobody was around, and when she was sure she was alone, she pulled the mask from her eyes.

It was still fairly early, and her parents definitely wouldn’t be looking for her, so she decided to walk and take the long way home, try to clear her head. She still hadn’t fully processed everything she had just experienced, let alone what it all meant. She figured she had unknowingly put a target on her back, given what the guy had said to her before he left. She’d have to look into all of that business later. And then Sister Grimm…

 _Are we rivals now?_ Karolina wasn’t sure. This had been the first time they had encountered each other, although Karolina had seen a couple reports about “Sister Grimm, the girl in black” on the news. Fairly new to the field, but pretty effective from the looks of it. Something told Karolina she’d be seeing a lot more of her from now on, and the thought was strangely exciting.

_This’ll be interesting._

**Author's Note:**

> i’m not sure how often this will be updated, but i hope to upload at Least once every two weeks. hopefully more but school has been kicking my butt lately so we’ll just have to see.
> 
> i have many ideas for this and i am really excited to continue uwu
> 
> feedback is greatly appreciated!!!
> 
>  
> 
> edit 06/13: so clearly my hope for how frequently i would update this died. oops! it’s fair to say this will not have a consistent schedule but i do plan to continue it.


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